A TAKEAWAY boss hounded children to work as prostitutes and had sex with one girl “hundreds of times” from the age of 14, a court heard yesterday.

Azad Miah, 44, allegedly recruited girls as young as 12 to provide sexual services at his restaurant and begged them to find him “fresh meat”.

He “stalked” girls, following them in his car and even calling at their homes to ask them for sex, Carlisle crown court was told.

Tim Evans, prosecuting, said: “The defendant sought to persuade a variety of young girls – some of whom he knew were under 16 – to have sex with him for money or drugs and/or drink.

“He would hound young girls for periods of weeks or months face to face and over the phone.

"More worryingly, he would stalk some of them, following them from home.”

Mr Evans said witnesses would describe attending the restaurant to have sex with Miah or other men, meaning it “in essence not only operated as a takeaway restaurant, but a brothel”.

He added: “This was cold, clinical, calculated exploitation of the desperate and vulnerable.”

One alleged victim was just 14 when Miah started paying her for sex, the court heard.

He had sex with her at the restaurant, in the countryside and in his car “hundreds of times” over four years.

He usually paid her £100 because she needed £60 a day for drugs, the court heard.

She told police “numerous girls” visited the restaurant for sex. The younger the girls, the more money they were paid, the jury heard.

Mr Evans said the girl caught chlamydia and gonorrhoea from Miah because he refused to wear condoms.

He said another child was 12 years old when Miah first incited her to prostitution.

Miah told police the girls had invented their accusations against him because they were “druggists”, in reference to their drug habits.

He described himself as a “sex addict who would not refuse any woman who wanted to have sex with him”.

He claimed the alleged victims had brought charges against him because he had given them money in the past, but no longer did so.

Mr Evans told the jury: “You may think it is an odd thing to admit handing out money to young girls for no reason.”

Miah, of Carlisle, Cumbria, denies 17 separate charges, eight counts of paying for the sexual services of a child, eight counts of inciting child prostitution, and one count of keeping a brothel between 2005 and 2011.